Baby Mine
by SilverStarsAndMoons
Summary: Quinn ends up as a teenage mother after all, and isn't happy about it. She works through some of her emotions about being a good mother with Emma Pillsbury, but nothing really rings true until Emma surprisingly understands more than Quinn thought.


The last thing she wanted was a Baby Bjorn carrier – really, how was that going to look at school? But it was a gift from Noah's mom, and she doesn't like to disappoint anyone, especially elders. So she wears it over top of the cheerleader uniform that she finally fits back into and ignores the stares from her fellow students as she walks down the hall to the school-sponsored nursery that Mr. Schuester begged Figgins to put in.

Surprisingly, Quinn Fabray was not the only one in need of a facility like this. Other teachers began to bring their children; other students who she wouldn't have dreamed would have children started to use it. There's a lot of secrecy at William McKinley High, apparently.

Too bad Quinn couldn't have kept her mouth shut.

But then, it's not like she could have, anyway. She got a basketball belly at four months along and by nine months, her ankles and face swelled disgustingly. Even if she wanted to continue as captain of the cheerleading team, there's no way the girls could have hoisted her bloated body to the top of the pyramid. If they had even tried, it would have looked so pitifully disgusting and embarrassing for everyone, especially Quinn. And for the first time, Quinn got why Sue Sylvester refused to keep her on, even when Quinn thought it would break her.

The humiliation of the giggles and stares and pointed fingers were enough. Trying to keep up the farce of continuing to be her athletic, energetic, beautiful self would have been death.

The little body hanging in the Baby Bjorn is still foreign to Quinn, despite her attempts to get to know her daughter. Despite the baby being born during the summer months, Quinn thanks God every day that at least no one had to look at a pregnancy yearbook picture. She'd convinced the yearbook staff, on pain of reputation-ruining, to Photoshop her belly out of the Glee Club shot and to position her near the back of the Cheerios squad for the cheerleading picture. All that can be seen in either is her bravely smiling face – brave through the pain of rejection; brave through the pain of losing her family, her friends, and her life.

Quinn Fabray is nothing if not brave.

Terri Schuester fell through on the deal to take the baby after she was born. A month before the due date, she told Quinn quietly that she couldn't go through with it. Quinn had heard rumours that Mr. Schue had left Terri, but she had hoped that it wasn't true, because Jesus, couldn't she get a break, at least once? But God apparently hates teenage mothers, because He wrecked that deal for her, too. Figures.

Quinn had the baby through some of the worst pain of her life, and now has a C-section scar to remember the experience by. She refused to breastfeed, but still had to deal with the milk-stained T-shirts – all of them ruined – and the swollen breasts that went up two sizes and forced her to buy bigger bras without the lace and pretty colours that her lingerie is normally comprised of. She dealt with the pain of the C-section, the bleeding – all the bleeding, for at least a month, blood-soaked pads every day – and the post-partum depression, made worse by the fact that no one came to see her after the baby was born, and her mother refused to even come near the hospital.

Quinn spent the entire birth screaming for her mother. It was Noah's mother that held her hand and wiped her face. Noah Puckerman waited anxiously outside the door, wincing at every moan and scream that Quinn emitted. He held the baby first, but had to give her up almost immediately because the sight of Quinn undergoing a C-section made him go white, then throw up all over the OR floor.

Quinn spent the rest of July, the month of August and the first week of September trying to figure her new daughter out. The formula issues alone were baffling. Why would the baby not take her bottle? Why was she screaming at every feed? Why wouldn't she sleep? Why couldn't Quinn love her?

Now, it's the third week of school and all of her friends awkwardly avoid her. Her phone has stopped ringing. She downgraded her cell phone plan because she no longer needed unlimited evening minutes and fifteen hundred texts a month. The only kids who even dare to speak to her are the Glee kids, and secretly, Quinn is glad that she and her daughter have such a tight-knit support system. It's often the only thing that gets her through the day.

At night, when the baby is finally asleep in her basket beside Quinn's twin bed in Rachel Berry's home (and let's not even get started on how weird that has been), Quinn can't keep the tears back. She's doing the best she can, and the evenings at the McDonalds down the road from the school while the Puckermans look after the baby, plus schoolwork, plus the baby's inability to sleep more than four hours at a stretch have her exhausted and desperate.

She's on a knife edge constantly – her feelings are raw and easily hurt. She actually wept in Glee Club practice yesterday because Rachel criticized a solo. It wasn't even Quinn's solo! Everyone is really understanding, but she knows that she's failing to make the grade. She's not being a good mother.

She doesn't know how to be a good mother.

As she gets to her locker to grab her books for her first class on the way to the nursery, the baby yawns, wakes up, and begins to cry. Quinn sighs in exasperation. She fed the baby before school, and it hasn't even been an hour yet. She can't be hungry.

Annoyed, she digs out the bottle from her backpack and tries to fit the nipple in the baby's mouth while juggling her math book. Something's gotta give, and the bottle drops to the floor with a crash while the math book slips painfully down her bare legs to thud onto her feet. The baby's cries turn into screams and Quinn's face crumples in desperation.

"Come on, hush, shh," Quinn mutters, trying to calm the baby before she disturbs the entire hallway of classes. She bends to pick up the bottle and gasps in surprise as her fingers make contact with the toe of a pair of yellow high-heeled Mary Janes.

"Quinn?"

Quinn looks up to see Ms. Pillsbury in front of her. She's holding the baby's bottle (albeit with distaste) and staring down at Quinn and the baby. The baby's head is lying drunkenly to the side and her red mouth is open in an air-raid siren wail of distress. Quinn knows that her perfect ponytail is coming loose and frizzing unattractively around her red face, and she straightens up, taking the bottle from the guidance counsellor and trying to smile.

"Thanks. I was wondering where that went. She's not too happy about losing it!" Quinn tries to keep her voice light and airy, but it cracks under the strain and Emma Pillsbury smiles at her sympathetically.

"Why don't you step into my office for a sec? Get organized?"

Quinn nods gratefully. "Thank you so much."

Once inside Emma's office, Quinn places her paraphernalia on the guidance counsellor's desk and turns to the nervous woman before her.

"Can you just hold her for a sec? I have to find her blanket." She unbuckles the Baby Bjorn and shoves the baby unceremoniously into Emma's arms. The counsellor's face drains of colour.

"No, no, Quinn, I can't hold her. I can't – "

"Just for a second. She's already screaming. It's not like it's you." Quinn rolls her eyes and finally finds the blanket wadded up at the bottom of the backpack that alternately serves as her school bag and the baby's diaper bag.

Emma's face is tight as she tries to get a better hold on the three-month-old. She manages to awkwardly cradle the child while trying to hold her as far away from her body as she can. Quinn's face twists in satirical amusement.

"She won't bite, you know."

"They don't – Quinn, they're not stable."

"Are you afraid of a little baby puke?" Quinn's voice is slightly nasty and mocking, but underneath the mockery, she knows Emma is mysophobic and she takes her daughter back as soon as she can. Wrapping her loosely in the blanket, she finally sits down with her hiccupping daughter and pats her back.

"There, relax now. It's not the end of the world."

Her statement is meant both for Emma and the baby, and Emma takes her cue to sit down and thoroughly sanitize her hands. She looks at the bottle, slightly dusty from its roll in the hallway, and grimaces.

"Shouldn't you – I mean, did you want me to clean that for you? I don't think you should stick it in her mouth after you dropped it."

Quinn looks at the bottle in surprise. "I guess so. I mean, I normally don't care, and she doesn't either, but it is a little dirty."

Emma wipes the bottle off with antibacterial wipes and then hands it to Quinn. Her face softens as she watches Quinn feed her daughter.

"How's it going, Quinn?" Emma's voice is soft, and Quinn doesn't look up for a few moments.

"It's better since the nursery is here. I don't have to pay for daycare anymore, or inconvenience Puck's mom."

"Well, I don't know if it's an inconvenience, is it?"

Quinn looks up, a flash of anger crossing her face. "Sure it is. She's already raised babies. This one isn't hers, why should she have to look after her?"

Emma's face freezes a little at Quinn's tone, but she tries again. "Well, it's nice to have help. I'm sure that's all she wants to do, just help."

"Well, God knows we need that." Quinn stares at the baby, sucking hungrily on her bottle, and explodes angrily. "You know, she just ate. Not an hour ago. And she has to eat again. And I spent all my last paycheque on formula because I didn't want my boobs to get bigger or run with milk, and it happened anyway, and she can't poop on the cheaper stuff, so I have to get the more expensive crap. And she sucks it down like I never feed her."

Quinn keeps her eyes on the baby, but her words don't stop. "I never get enough sleep. I have to wake up three times a night with her and she's up for the day at six AM, even on weekends. She won't let anyone else feed her at night – I'm the only one who can make her shut up. And she's ruined six of the seven outfits Puck's mom gave her with poop. How much can a tiny baby poop, anyway? Diapers are so expensive!"

The tears are falling unchecked now. "I don't get to go out anymore. And I don't get any phone calls. Everyone looks at me like I'm disgusting and I just made one mistake, one mistake, Ms. Pillsbury. I made one little mistake . . . and I'm stuck with her forever."

Emma listens to all of this with a quiet expression and when Quinn finishes, she snakes a hand across her desk to rest on Quinn's arm.

"What's her name, Quinn?"

Quinn looks up, her tearstained face and luminous green eyes surprised. "What?"

"What's her name? I don't think you ever told me."

"Mary." Quinn looks down at her baby, asleep in her arms. "Her name is Mary Katherine. Her middle name is my grandma's."

Emma smiles. "I think she looks like you. She has your facial structure."

Quinn looks at her daughter closely. "No, I think she looks more like Puck. When she smiles, she looks like him."

"Does she smile?"

Quinn smiles herself, almost involuntarily. "She does. She just started smiling at me. She just smiles at me, though, so far."

Emma touches the baby's hair, the barest brush of her fingers against the blonde fuzz on the child's head. "Mary . . . what a beautiful name."

"I called her Mary after Mary Magdalene. Because I want her to be strong and virtuous." Quinn looks down, embarrassed. "I don't want her to make the same mistakes I did."

"I think everyone wishes that for their children, Quinn."

"She wasn't supposed to be mine," Quinn whispers. "She wasn't supposed to end up with me. I'm not good enough for her."

Will Schuester passes behind Quinn, and Emma's eyes follow his movement. Quinn looks up to see his bright smile, and despite herself, she smiles back.

"He would have been a good dad to her. He's so nice to all of us, you know? He would have loved her so much."

Emma doesn't say anything for a few minutes, and when she does, her face is sad, and even a little guilty. "Yes, you're probably right."

"I just . . . I can't do this, Ms. Pillsbury. I can't be everything to her and everything to everyone else. I want to go to college. I want to have a life. I didn't want to look after a baby at sixteen years old."

"Who does, Quinn? No one makes that choice for themselves. No one decides they'd like to have their first child out of wedlock and without any support." Emma's voice is harsher than usual, and Quinn winces at her tone.

"She'll never amount to anything. Who can with this kind of start?"

Emma's face is really angry, now, and Quinn almost ducks from surprise. She's never seen Ms. Pillsbury look anything but supportive, kind, and nervous.

"Quinn, my mother was sixteen when she had me."

Quinn's blonde eyebrows shoot into her hairline. "What?"

"Yes. She was sixteen years old, and she was poor, and she had no one to give her anything. She worked at the local diner and I played in a playpen outside the kitchen."

"But . . . you said you were from Virginia," says Quinn stupidly, as if that makes all the difference.

"Quinn, my mother gave me up for adoption when I was a year old. She couldn't handle it. There was a young couple in town that couldn't have kids, and so she gave me to them. Being from Virginia –" (and here, Emma's face twists a little in amusement) " – doesn't really make a difference. She was poor and from south Appalachia. She had no birth control and no education. My adoptive parents made sure I did."

"Terri didn't want her in the end," blurts Quinn. "I don't know who to give her to. I don't know if I want to give her to anyone."

Emma sighs in exasperation, shaken out of her usual patience by the novelty of sharing a personal anecdote. "I'm not saying you have to give Mary up. I'm saying, however, that part of being a parent is taking responsibility for another person's life. You do the best you can for that child, and you do it in whatever way is best for you, too."

Quinn stares into Emma's big brown eyes, and her own eyes fill with tears. "So . . . I'm not a horrible mom for not trying to find another family for her?"

"Quinn, I don't know any other student who works as hard as you do. If this is the best way you can look after her, then you are doing your best. No one can make decisions for her but you and Noah, now. You two need to take responsibility for her life and make sure she will grow up happy."

"Like your mom did."

"Like Jenny did, yes." Emma's face shadows a moment, then clears. "She did it so that I would be happy. I would not have been happy living in a shack on a mountain in Virginia."

Quinn's face breaks into a real smile. "No, I would imagine not."

She stands. "I need to go. I'm late for class, and she's probably wet, so I need to change her before I drop her off to the nursery."

Emma's finger skims over the baby's soft forehead. "She's beautiful, Quinn."

"Thank you," says Quinn automatically, but she means it this time. She holds out the sleeping child to Emma.

"I need to put my bag on. Please?"

This time, Emma doesn't recoil, though she does look uncomfortable as she accepts the bundle of sleeping baby into her arms.

"See, you're getting better," Quinn smiles.

"So are you," says Emma, and smiles back as she hands Mary back to Quinn. The blonde cheerleader smiles again, this time with no mockery or malice.

"Thanks, Ms. Pillsbury."

"Any time, Quinn."


End file.
